Silent Night
by Koticzka
Summary: The first Xmas after Voldemort's collapse bring changes to many:Severus Snape tries to find his new place in new conditions,he receives support from an unexpected sitethe Malfoys face the first struggle in the stable life.There's a carrol in Azkaban,too..


"We lost him, Minerva."  
A woman took off her glasses and nervously touched her hair fastened neatly.  
"He died as a hero."  
Minerva's lips were quivering and her eyes glazed over.  
"Did he?" she asked politely with unnatural high voice "And do you know, Albus, that I do not care?"   
"Minerva, we all have lost..."  
"We all but YOU! oh, don't start with this your altruistic love for whole the world right now! That is not the same, you haven't lost a wife, a brother either a daughter, so, please, just please, for this one single time stop giving me the curtain-lecture! Please, simply just shut up!!!"  
The thin and high old man with double-hunched nose was sitting stunned for a while knocked out by the burst of his interlocutor now sobbing aloud into her handkerchief.  
Finally he sighed deeply and held her tight. She nestled into his arm.

"As you already know, a friend of ours, Phineas Crockford, has fallen in yesterday's skirmish with a group calling itself Death Eaters," Albus Dumbledore waited a while for the noise in a teachers' room to die and then he proceeded "The ceremony in honour of him will take place tomorrow at noon. Probably you have also heard of my special undertakings necessary in a situation like this.  
He looked around at the gathered. Not all of them have confirmed.  
"After a New Year the position of a master of Potions will be formally taken over by a person of adequate competences in this area," he hesitated for a moment "Doctor Severus Snape."  
An unpleasant silence set in.  
"I do not want to keep you here longer than necessary; I understand you want to join your families and friends as soon as possible."   
"Headmaster," said a man of the corner "I recon I speak not only for myself... After the tragedy we'd rather spent Christmas here, together. Phineas Crockford... would not leave like this, I suppose... We owe him that!"  
"Right, Eusebius! We should stay!"  
"My sister is waiting...!!!"  
"We should not...!"  
"It is still the war, we should stay close together!"  
"Silence, silence, please! What we deal with are dangerous warriors but the War was finished last year! And I do not want to see any panic either chaos here! Any more comments to that? Anyone?" he glanced at each face sternly "That is why not only I do not expect you to change your decisions. I insist you spent holidays as you have planned!" Phineas was a close friend to us all and his death is an appalling loss. But do you want to grant them a victory admitting this bandits' performance as the beginning of a new war for the power?  
He became silent and watched their faces again.  
"As for my decision about the master of Potion's job, it shall be not subjected for any discussion. And please, do treat it as my New Year proclamation. As a seal of peace.  
He glimpsed at Minerva. She was sitting stiff and easy as always, just paler than usual; and her black robe underlined shadows round the eyes.  
"Well, that is all. Have a Merry and peaceful Christmas time."  
Headmaster waited a while but no one has kept him. Slowly he moved to his office. Hearing quick female steps he stopped.  
"Yes, Minerva?"  
"Albus... Albus, how could you!?"  
He did not answer.  
"Why just him?!"  
"That is why. Because those were Death Eaters and because Severus Snape was also a Death Eater. Because Phineas died and because Severus Snape is no longer a Death Eater. Because you all want battue in the same style as they chased us once. Do you not understand we have to cut it? Once and for good?! To start an ordinary life from the beginning, in a normal way, without all these heroic gestures as common Christmas, singing the pathetic songs, without battle bursts? They all still live the war and hatred. And even you are not helpful to put an end with it?"  
"ME?!"   
"Minerva... Minerva!"  
But Minerva was running in an opposite direction, covering her face with the handkerchief again.   
All he was to do was to come back to his office.

Narcissa opened the drawer and was sorting her gloves with slim fingers; at last she chose ecru ones. Hearing rustling behind her she screamed and twisted, throwing down the vase with white camellias.   
"Lucius???"  
She withdraw by the very wall.  
"I adore warm family welcomes."  
She gauged a man in a black velvet cloak heavy of mud with a glance. The long light hair of a newcomer were matted and covered with dark sticky and dense liquid.   
"What's the smell?"  
"I do not know. Decay?" he draw his nose to his own arm and sniffed it "Cadaverous remnants?"  
The woman shrugged. This view made him giggle.   
"Beautiful and unblemished as always."  
The were standing against each other – her, well-groomed blonde of a perfect appearance in a pearl dress and him, proud and imperious despite his filthy dark cloak with blood-red lining carelessly thrown on his severe black clothes.  
"Is Draco sleeping?"  
"Yes. He managed to transfigure your snake into 2-meters long worm before his nanny had taken your wand from him.  
"Bid to prepare a hot bath for me," he threw and slowly started to climb the wide stairs not mentioning her any more.  
After about a quarter, with an expression of delight on his face he dived in steaming water splashing it all around. Narcissa stopped by the mirror and rubbed her perfume behind the ear.  
"Do we still have cognac or have you already got rid of this noble drink?"  
She shrugged her shoulders and left the bathroom. After a while she came back with a glass of an amber alcohol.  
"Won't you have one with me?"   
The woman sat on the edge of the tube without a word.  
"I settled accounts with Crockford. Unfortunately, after he managed to settle accounts with most of our dear young friends."  
"He was not alone, was he?"  
"No, obviously not. It even seemed to me that I saw..." he shook his head "No... he would not be so reckless, he's a thin cunning fellow," he shook his head.  
"Who?"  
Lucius drove his steal eyes in the woman.  
"A friend. It is the end. They made mincemeat of us all."  
"No one has recognized you?"  
"How careful you are, darling. No. Your little fortune is safe. You're not going to lose a single precious knut" the woman sighed "Only fools let them caught."  
She plunged the hand in a hot water and played with a ball of lather.  
"Right before your comeback I received an owl from Natalie. She invites me to her Christmas party."  
"You alone? Without me?"  
"You never accept her invitations so perhaps she has given the trials up."   
"And you agreed although I was absent?"  
"Oh, you are absent so often! And always come back with no scratch. Is it different?"  
"I get caught on bushes," he exposed a threadlike wound on the neck.  
"I have answered her I would be there."  
"Have o good fun, then."  
"Thank you. Merry Christmas, Lu."  
She rose and slowly walked to the door.  
"You know, Nar? It is so funny. I have no idea how it came to this... Natalie always crushed where she should have not. And I felt even sorry when – absolutely accidentally and on the very beginning of fight she just crushed under my Avada. An unpleasant incident; at last she was a Death Eater...  
Narcissa came to a standstill.  
"Marry Christmas, Nar. Have a good fun," he snorted and bent his head back closing the eyes.  
When Narcissa's steps had faded away on the stairs, the man dived.

The teachers' room was almost full. Most of people gathered around the giant Christmas tree and a fireplace where the flames were dancing merrily. The noise faded when a high and skeletal black-haired man with a hooked nose walked in.  
They stood petrified.  
The man found a gray-headed Professor Dumbledore's figure in front of the hearth but the old wizard ignored the entire crowd, conversing with himself. A newcomer bowed gracelessly and hid in the armchair in the corner gawping at the Headmaster.  
House-Elves in St Claus's hats brought in the heated wine on huge trays. Trays were put on a table and Elves stood in the middle and screeched "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and some other season songs. The room was again full of chitchats although the atmosphere of relaxation and relative recklessness was gone. A dim guest in the corner could feel glances thrown towards him. After first trays another appeared and Elves finished their recital happily, awarded with long and aloud applause. Instead of carols more and more often calls "Accio Vino" were heard.  
Minerva stood next to Albus and stared at him as firmly as the thin man behind them. Dumbledore raised his head and smiled wryly, afterwards he came back to his fascinating senile chitchat.  
The witch summoned another mug with wine and moved briskly straight to the corner. Her aim jumped to his feet in the last moment more anxious about being attacked than due to his manners.  
"We do not pour a poison either the powdered sneezwort!"  
"Waste," he murmured.  
"I BEG YOUR PARDON?!"  
"A sneezwort causes unwanted effects, however, it gives an incomparable aroma to the wine. And side effects can be neutralized by... by certain ingredients."  
"What ingredients???"  
„That is my family secret. I am sorry but I cannot reveal it."  
"Oh!"   
Irritated she thrust a mug into his palm. And looked straight into his eyes.  
"Marry Christmas," she muttered finally.   
"Thank you."  
„And you? Won't you wish me Merry Christmas?"  
He had not answered for a long while.  
"Let the next holiday be really joyful, Professor."  
She turned her head away, pressing thin lips together.  
"So... Merry Next Christmas?"  
"Merry Next Christmas."  
Minerva looked at him once more. Tears were falling down her chicks covered with a delicate web of dense lines. She giggled with embarrassment. Severus Snape reached his pocket for his own handkerchief. Cleaning up her face she hit gently his mug and sipped the hot wine, while Severus followed her.  
The witch nodded to him and came back to the harsh; Dumbledore stopped her and asked about something.   
"Severus has promised us a good, proper wine next holiday!" she answered.  
Snape chocked with wine.  
Dumbledore smiled and throw a dove-gray glimpse over his half-moon glasses to a new teacher.  
Severus Snape put the mug away, bowed and left. Behind him the noise of chitchats was growing.

The icy wind revolved around the walls of the gloomy building once more and resigned it sat on the edge of the isle.  
Behind one of the windows a young man in a prisoner's clothes moved to the window. The wind started up frightened by the miserable face unshaved for months and eyes burning morbidly and it got lost somewhere in the open sea. Perhaps the wind was even more afraid of the man than of the guarding Dementor hauling through the corridor behind the cell.   
The prisoner was keeping a metal cup closely to his chest. After a while he started to hit rhythmically in grates:

Taaaap – tap - tap – taaap  
Taaaap – tap - tap - taaap   
Taaaap – tap - taaaap - tap  
Taaaap – tap-taaaap – tap


End file.
